A Garden Beauty

Yellow is an iris blooming in the sun. The flower’s name is worthy of a Disney character: Gypsy Princess.

I’m continuing knitting on the first Project Spectrum theme, green, while photographing the new colors and shades as they come along. As for the green project — the honeycomb vest — I’m tinking yet again. But I think I figured out something that could keep the increases from looking like a confused muddle. It will take around 14 rows re-knitting after I tink to find out if I’m right. This could take a bit of time, since my other projects are a wicked commute and gainful employment.

Yellow Sunshine

Yesterday, I was walking around in a suburb of Dusseldorf, taking advantage of 2 golden, rare hours of sunshine before I had to be on a plane. (We will not discuss the fact that getting to Germany is easy, but somehow every time I try to get home there’s some technical hiccup — this time the fog in NYC.)

I’m not sure what era this building is from, but its sunshiny yellow color reflects off the building and white auto to its left.

Fog and the Flock

Sometimes, if you’re driving in the early evening and it’s foggy, you will see birds or deer in the gloaming, and the effect is almost grainy, like a bit of old film.

One night, while heading south on 83 into northern Baltimore, I stopped at Northern Parkway and waited at the light. The fog was lit up by 83 below the other side of the bridge. And in the dusky sky, lit from below by yellow and white car lights speeding like search beams, were a hundred or so sharp winged swifts darting to catch bugs in the evening. The ones backlit and closest to my intersection were in sharp relief, but the ones in the background were almost like stop reel animation.

I’m looking for inspiration for the new cycle in Project Spectrum, which is yellow, air, East, and wood and Spring. This visual event was magically brief, but I’m not sure how to translate it into the project (beyond getting out my woodcutting tools and doing a printer’s block of the scene).

Happy Spring

Wishing everyone a Happy Easter.

Or a happy Passover, fertility festival, or just general walk in the park to celebrate there being a wee bit more sun in the skies.

Me, I hope to be together enough to go on a little tiny road trip with the Gardener to hear good music (hopefully) and sing along with some hymns. Barring that, I’m going to go on a 1 mile trip to a public garden and sit out on a park bench for a while and pretend it’s warm enough not to wear a coat.

Snowdrops

Snowdrops

Originally uploaded by rjknits

English ivy and flourishes of white snowdrops in a neighbor’s yard, to the north of the sidewalk. A large tree shelters the area, and bulbs and ivy are the only things that grow there (bulbs bloom before the tree puts out its leaves).

I associate the almost black color of ivy with the bitterness of winter weather — the leaves seem to darken over the season, with hints of burgundy on the underside of the leaves. However, I associate snowdrops with the hope of Spring, so kind of a nice pull between the seasons shown in this picture.

Part of a photo series on “North” and “Green” for Project Spectrum 4.

Marzipan as Still Life

Photographed by the Gardener before they’re gone — the marzipan fruit candies of Sprungli are small, artistic, and very, very tasty. They made a wonderful gift to bring home — much nicer than airport flowers (and easier to carry on the plane). Here is a lemon, orange, a few pears, and apples. Each is small enough to fit comfortably on a nickel. I can’t imagine how time-consuming it must be to make these little pieces of art.

My marzipan never looks this delicate and beautiful. I am thinking of making simnel cake again this year for Easter anyway, since it still tastes wonderful, no matter how amateur my cooking skills are.